Cancellara wins prologue of 99th Tour de France

Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium after winning the prologue of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 6,4 kilometers (4 miles) with start and finish in Liege, Belgium, Saturday June 30 2012. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
— AP

Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium after winning the prologue of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 6,4 kilometers (4 miles) with start and finish in Liege, Belgium, Saturday June 30 2012. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
/ AP

"I finished second, so that's a good thing," added Wiggins. "Physically I felt fantastic. I didn't take any major risk because there were a lot of tricky sections."

Evans, too, said he'd expected to be outclassed in the prologue, and put his ride into a broader perspective.

"Not good, but not bad," the Australian said. "Of course I'd rather concede less seconds, you never want to lose time ... I've got one (general classification) rider ahead of me, but I was kind of half-expecting that. Wiggins, what his background is, is these short efforts."

"For me the real racing starts tomorrow," Evans added. "I'm just happy to get it going, and looking forward to some good racing. ... It's like 6 kilometers out of 3,500 or so, so in that regard it's a small comparison."

His American team, BMC, had some bright spots.

In addition to the Australian's solid performance, Tejay van Garderen, a 23-year-old American, placed fourth - 10 seconds behind Cancellara - and earned the white jersey for the best young Tour rider. Near the other end of the cycling career lifespan, 39-year-old compatriot George Hincapie began his 17th Tour - setting a new record. He placed 22nd.

"It hit me on the podium, I probably should have been thinking about the effort," said Hincapie. "The priority is helping Cadel."

Wiggins' 10-second gap over Evans was double that of the margin he put into the Australian in the slightly shorter opening time trial in the Criterium du Dauphine earlier this month - a weeklong stage race seen as a key warm-up for the Tour.

Despite jittery first-day nerves, only a few riders ran into mishaps. Tony Martin, the reigning world time trial champion, was the day's highest-profile casualty: The German rider got a flat tire, raised his hand to his team staffers, and had to change bikes - and crossed 15 seconds back of Chavanel, who was leading up to that point.

Promising young Slovak rider Peter Sagan briefly skipped off the road and lost time.

As defending champion, Evans had the honor of riding last among the 198 competitors who rolled down the starter's ramp for the race against the clock in the cycling-crazed city, where untold thousands of fans lined the route.

Sunday's first stage takes riders over a mostly flat, 123-mile loop from Liege to the nearby town of Seraing.